10 comments

  • butterfi 2297 days ago
    I'm seeing a lot of people who may not have agreed with Ed Lee politics, but still have good things to say about the man. That gives me a little hope that we don't have to accept the "politics as warfare"attitude that seems to dominate American culture.
  • dmode 2297 days ago
    Sad to see him die young. Mixed feelings about his tenure. He was instrumental in making SF the tech powerhouse it has become. He also more friendly to developers housing. Where he fell short was managing the homeless and property crime issue. Hopefully someone can take those issues more seriously
    • rootbear 2297 days ago
      I'm 60. My mother is 97. So yeah, as far as I'm concerned, he died young.
    • hyperbovine 2297 days ago
      Is 65 considered young? Honest question. He was born during the Truman administration...
      • peterjlee 2297 days ago
        The US male average life expectancy is around 77. That includes early deaths of low income people with poor access to health care, very obese people, teenage drivers. In fact an average US male who reaches the age of 65 is likely to live until 84.3 (1). 65 seems like an early age to die for someone with a social/financial status of a major city mayor.

        (1) https://www.ssa.gov/planners/lifeexpectancy.html

        • dragonwriter 2297 days ago
          > In fact an average US male who reaches the age of 65 is likely to live until 84.3 (1).

          Pretty much everyone dies early if you look at their life expectancy at their last birthday.

          • adventured 2297 days ago
            Indeed. As a male in the US if you make it to 75 you'll live about 11 more years on average. Interestingly though that's only a four year improvement over where it was at in 1900. I think it implies most of those people are pushing the edge of average genetic longevity and that medical tech has struggled to do much for non-super longevity people once you're over that general ~75 threshold. That is, my opinion is the overwhelming majority of the the factor/s that get you from 75 to 100 or more, are genetic (and if you don't have super longevity genes, almost nothing will get you to ~100).
      • geebee 2297 days ago
        No, not young, I do agree with that. The average life expectancy for a 65 year old is 84, so in that sense, Ed Lee died 20 years before you'd expect him to. A healthy 65 year old (which is what Ed Lee appeared to be as far as I know) has a lot of life left, and an energetic and involved man like Lee still had a lot left to do.[1]

        http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2014/10/us_li...

        [1] intended as a general expression of sympathy and sadness, in no way do I wish to imply your question suggested anything otherwise!

      • melling 2297 days ago
        That was after WW2. Kirk Douglas just turned 101, he was born 36 years earlier.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_Douglas

        The average age of death for a US male is 78, which isn't particularly old. Move to Canada and you get a few more years. :-)

        • dragonwriter 2297 days ago
          > The average age of death for a US male is 78

          No, you've confused life expectancy at birth with average age of death; that is, males who are born today are, on average, expected to live to around 78; when Ed Lee was born, that number was a little over 65.

          • melling 2297 days ago
            You completely overlooked why it was 65. As I explained to your other comment:

            "Yeah, in 1950 you could die from polio. Half the male population smoked. No seatbelts in cars, ... No treatments for cancer, heart disease... There were a lot of factors. "

            • dragonwriter 2297 days ago
              Why it was 65 doesn't really matter; if you are going to use life expectancy at birth to gauge whether a death is premature, the only sane figure is life expectancy at the birth of the person in question, not life expectancy at birth for people of the same gender in the year they died. (Unless they died the same year they were born, which is uncontroversially premature.)

              (It also doesn't make sense to use life expectancy at @current-age in the year they died, at least if you are trying to portray “premature” death as something other than a near universal norm.)

              • melling 2297 days ago
                "if you are going to use life expectancy at birth ..."

                Who said you should use this as a gauge? That included lots of coal miners who were dying of black lung, etc.

                One value isn't a very good indicator. By state and race varies greatly, for example.

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_life_ex...

                The current life expectancy of an Asian American in California is 86 years old.

                • dragonwriter 2297 days ago
                  > Who said you should use this as a gauge?

                  Implicitly, all the people in this thread—including you—pointing to the current US male life expectancy at birth.

                  I just say that if you are going to use life expectancy at birth, at least use one applicable to the birth of the person in question.

      • marme 2297 days ago
        not young but most would consider it premature death. Average life expectancy in US is over 75
        • dragonwriter 2297 days ago
          > Average life expectancy in US is over 75

          Life expectancy at birth for males in the US is 75+ (80+ for females) now. In 1950, for males, life expectancy at birth was 65.6 years.

          https://www.infoplease.com/life-expectancy-birth-race-and-se...

          • melling 2297 days ago
            Yeah, in 1950 you could die from polio. Half the male population smoked. No seatbelts in cars, ... No treatments for cancer, heart disease...

            There were a lot of factors.

        • hyperbovine 2297 days ago
          Alas, not all of us can expect to live to an above-average age.
      • dmode 2297 days ago
        Yeah, young is probably the wrong choice of words on my part. "Premature" would have been better.
      • jpmattia 2297 days ago
        > Is 65 considered young? Honest question. He was born during the Truman administration...

        I used to think 65 was old. Then I turned 50, and it suddenly seemed kind of young.

        -- Born in the last 2 weeks of the Kennedy administration.

      • ucaetano 2297 days ago
        The life expectancy for someone who in 2014 was 62 years old (like him) was another 20 years. So it is definitely young.

        Source: SSA.

        • dragonwriter 2297 days ago
          Select the right base time for each individual (easy to do after they die), and everyone dies prematurely by this standard.
          • ucaetano 2297 days ago
            Not really, 10+ years before the average life expectancy and 17 years before the life expectancy of 3 years ago is definitely young.
            • geebee 2297 days ago
              Yeah, there are degrees of early. I think it's fair to say this one is meaningfully early, rather than a statistical slight of hand.
  • marinman 2297 days ago
    Didn't always agree with his policies or politics but sad to see this. Condolences to his families.

    As for London Breed, I've met her a few times at community gatherings. She seems like she has a good head on her shoulders. We'll see, SF has lots of problems.

  • aantix 2297 days ago
    Remember Ed Lee's "2 Legit to Quit" campaign video? Epic.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbdd_Fasz0k

  • mleonhard 2297 days ago
    From 2011 through the end of 2015, SF jobs grew 23% and housing grew only 3%! Mayor Ed Lee worked hard to bring jobs to SF. I wish he had worked harder to bring housing and transit for the people working those new jobs. The result of the imbalance is more money for the wealthy (higher rent income & tiny houses sold for $1M) and more suffering for everyone else (higher rents, crowding, displacement, & unhealthy commutes).
  • car 2297 days ago
    I had the honor of meeting Ed Lee recently. This is very sad. Ed was a truly kind and humble man, my heart goes out to his family.
  • paulsutter 2297 days ago
    I'm sure Ed Lee was a great guy, but San Francisco is the worst-managed city I have ever seen (lived there for many years).

    I don't expect improvement anytime soon, but everyone should get on board the YIMBY movement and push hard for change.

    • nodesocket 2297 days ago
      As a recent downtown SF resident who just fled San Francisco after 6 years I completely agree. Sad about his passing, but SF politics and policies are completely backward. The city refuses to acknowledge problems and punish bad behavior for fear of social justice backlash. Instead they villainize hard working Americans and victimize criminals. Off to greener pastures; Nashville TN for me.
      • dawhizkid 2297 days ago
        I lived in the TL near city hall for 2 years because I got what is/was an amazing deal for a new construction studio for $1795/mo and was easy to walk to work. I ended up feeling an urgency to move not because I felt very unsafe but because of the mental toll of walking through needles, garbage, feces, and many obviously mentally ill homeless people became too much for me to take.
      • hyperbovine 2297 days ago
        Put differently, a tremendous number of people are willing to put up with SF, warts and all, rather than move somewhere else. It must be an amazing place to live.
        • refurb 2297 days ago
          Is that true? There seems to be a lot of churn. People come when they are young and leave after a few years.
          • butterfi 2297 days ago
            This is very much true, and has been since the 80's. Source? Me. I'm still here, but 95% of the people I met when I moved here in '85 have moved back home.
          • tomkarlo 2297 days ago
            That's true of a lot of large cities in that age group - as you start families, you tend to start to value cheap housing (for more space) and good schools more than you do when you're single. I remember a stat that said if you move to a city after you're 30, you have a >50% chance of staying there long term, and that's why cities will target that age group when trying to get people to move. I'm guessing that means for people 20-30 the % that stay in a city is less than that, so it would be normal to see most folks you know eventually move out of town in that age bracket in a major city.

            SF has a lot of turnover, but the few studies I've seen say it's not particularly high by US standards. Nashville, for one, is higher. (Notably this study is by MSA so it wouldn't consider someone moving from SF to say, Burlingame a departure.) https://www.abodo.com/blog/so-long-to-the-city/

        • beamatronic 2297 days ago
          I keep meaning to do an Ask HN about this. "What does living in San Francisco mean to you?" I am curious what other peoples experience with the city is. There's so many lifestyles possible and ways to enjoy the city.
          • ProfessorLayton 2297 days ago
            As a City native, but one who grew up in the East Bay, SF means a lot to me, even though I don't live there anymore. A lot of my major life events have taken place there, and I would like to eventually move back in one day. I technically could, but the financials don't make sense, and since I don't work there, my commute wouldn't be any better — so I'm staying put for now.

            You're right about being able to enjoy the city in many ways. I regularly enjoy it at my leisure, it is 45min door-to-door Bart ride away, and relatively cheap to Uber/Lyft back at any time (Compared to the premium of actually living there).

          • kaycebasques 2296 days ago
            Do it!
      • kaycebasques 2297 days ago
        You are welcome to your views, and they may be certainly valid, but I need to point out that you used some sensational language without providing any references.

        Edit: I generally agree that SF has many management problems, I just take issue with how this comment was framed. Specifically: "social justice backlash", "villainize hard working Americans", "victimize criminals". I just think that it'd be more constructive if we discussed SF without imposing such a narrow view on a complicated topic. By "references" I meant that it'd be helpful if we had some stories or articles that substantiates these claims of "social justice backlash", "villainizing Americans", "victimizing criminals". Of course it's all relative and I have my own subjective perspective on everything, but I do believe that it's possible for us to discuss this topic without resorting to phrases that trigger knee-jerk emotional responses.

        • xster 2297 days ago
          This may be totally flippant but I feel like to be constructive in this case, the 'reference' totally depends on the target audience's travel experiences.

          In the simplest case, the 'reference' could just be to live in other cities (not like L.A.). Specifically other cities that weren't all that much in the past decades and had progress in recent years, more or less as an antithesis of SF which I'd categorize as a city that was ahead of its time in 50 years ago and let the hype get too deeply engrained in its psyche and culture and stagnated since, out of a sense of isolation and self superiority.

          If you lived in other places and disagree, the meat of our discussion would take entirely different paths.

        • g09980 2297 days ago
          As someone also previously living in SF, I did not find his post sensational.
          • jblow 2297 days ago
            As someone who lived in SF for 24 years and is probably moving back, I will say that SF is a total dump and needs help badly.
          • hkmurakami 2297 days ago
            regarding victimizing criminals, I found the recent trial of the Katherine Steinle to be very surprising, yet perhaps emblematic of the city's climate.

            http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/jury-reaches-v...

            • sjburt 2297 days ago
              Before trying to draw a conclusion, you should read this article by one of the (alternate) jurors who lays exactly how and why the prosecution fell short of proving the charges they made. It had absolutely nothing do with the identity of the defendant or the victim.

              https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/06/kate-stei...

              Unless, of course, you mean to suggest that juries outside of SF are more apt to ignore the law and the evidence presented.

            • stretchwithme 2297 days ago
              If he'd followed the law, this would never have happened. He needs to be somewhere where he can't harm somebody else.
              • asveikau 2297 days ago
                So somebody else would have found the stolen gun on the sidewalk.
          • kaycebasques 2297 days ago
            As someone who lives here now, I did. Specifically: "social justice backlash", "villainize hard working Americans", "victimize criminals". Edit: I mostly just take issue with how the comment was framed. I agree that SF has many management issues.
            • xster 2297 days ago
              Genuinely curious. I think these things are all kinda relative anyway. What's the frame of reference / point of comparison?
        • kyleblarson 2297 days ago
          Kate Steinle unfortunately can't share her story.
      • pizzetta 2297 days ago
        I think the city charter contributes to the pattern where supervisors focus on their core constituency and keep city-wide issues at the periphery.

        The different districts have different concerns and often do not overlap, so its hard to get consensus on big items like housing, what to do about the homeless encampments and so no.

      • hkmurakami 2297 days ago
        Would be interested in reading a writeup once you've been there for say 6-12 months.

        Asking for a friend.

      • justboxing 2297 days ago
        How's the job scene in Nashville? Work in Tech?
        • nodesocket 2297 days ago
          Self employed (SaaS and consultant). I am sure there will be far less networking opportunities there vs SF, but my sanity, safety, and personal happiness is more important.
    • transitorykris 2297 days ago
      I would not pin the troubles the city is facing on Ed Lee. The Board of Supervisors has an outsized influence on policy, especially housing, and for the most part continues to obstruct development single handedly.
    • mmanfrin 2297 days ago
      Ed Lee took over Newsom's spot with a pledge that he would not run for Mayor in the special election (since taking over as interim Mayor would give him a big incumbent bump since many voters are apathetic about local elections and tend to just pick the name they recognize).

      Come election time, Lee throws his hat into the ring, to the jeers of people who cried foul.

      • CalChris 2297 days ago
        Similarly, Gavin Newsom was appointed to the Board of Supervisors by Brown. San Francisco could markedly improve if appointments to vacant elected offices were banned.
    • jdavis703 2297 days ago
      Ed Lee started out as an affordable housing advocate. I'm not sure what happened to him along the way. Did he get more conservative as he got older? Did the city's runaway growth outdo him?

      As for getting on board the YIMBY movement, Fast Co writes that the new mayor "grew up with her grandmother in the city’s housing projects and public housing has been an important part and particular focus of her political career. "

      A quick skim of voting records also appears that she supports development: https://sfgov.legistar.com/PersonDetail.aspx?ID=92842&GUID=4....

      • ucaetano 2297 days ago
        > Ed Lee started out as an affordable housing advocate.

        The best pro-affordable housing policy is plenty of market-rate construction.

      • yonran 2297 days ago
        Ed Lee advocated for the right housing policies. As mayor, he created the Affordable Housing Trust Fund after California ended Redevelopment and created several efforts to increase the housing supply, including the Public Land for Housing program (http://sf-planning.org/public-land-housing-formerly-public-s...) and the executive directive to streamline construction permits (http://sfmayor.org/article/executive-directive-17-02). On housing, my only criticism of Lee is that he was too slow to recognize the affordability issue.
      • lacker 2297 days ago
        The affordable housing movement changed. It used to be people who wanted housing to be cheaper. Now it is people who want housing to be more expensive. They just kept the same name out of inertia.
      • xster 2297 days ago
        Thanks for the voting records link!
    • MBlume 2297 days ago
      The mayor has only so much power over the city. As someone involved in the YIMBY movement, I think we mostly considered him an ally.
    • masterleep 2297 days ago
      Ironically, Ed Lee was viewed as the competent one. Get ready for what comes next to be worse.
    • timr 2297 days ago
      ...or alternatively, demand that the city stop handing moneyed interests the keys to the city. It's embarrassing to see a gigantic empty mall in the middle of Market street when so many people are homeless. You can thank Ed Lee for that -- it would be “such an attraction for retail,” he said [1]. What could have been an apartment building or live/work space became a mall that nobody wants [2].

      While the housing crisis is real in SF, the "YIMBY" movement is a fairly thoughtless, knee-jerk reaction to the problem. In general in SF, developers have been getting exactly what they want since Wille Brown -- they just don't build things that help people who don't have money. SF could use some balance on the other side of the ledger.

      [1] http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/11/12/150-million-reta...

      [2] http://hoodline.com/2017/02/market-street-s-6x6-mall-opens-p...

  • realworldstuff 2297 days ago
    Wouldn't be surprised if this was an assassination by the Triad

    Edit: Thanks Apocryphon for the correction

    • Mizza 2297 days ago
      This has been downvoted as it seems like a racist/troll comment, but Lee did in fact have connections to a Chinese gang, as does his new successor, London Breed. This might not be well known to people outside of SF, or even people within it.

      Here is an article about it.

      http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/08/04/san_franci...

      > The investigation into Shrimp Boy's Chinatown gang empire has already resulted in California state Sen. Leland Yee pleading guilty to racketeering after he was implicated alongside Chow in a weapons trafficking scheme. Chow's defense team now claims that a Yee associate, businessman Derf Butler, also funnelled "untraceable debit cards for clothing and trips" to San Francisco City Supervisor London Breed.

      Real life is stranger than fiction sometimes.

      • anigbrowl 2297 days ago
        Raymond 'Shrimp Boy' Chow alleged all sorts of things about everyone in San Francisco while defending himself against organized crime charges, and while some of them may be true it's a stretch to say that Lee 'did in fact have connections to a Chinese gang.'

        Chow was a colorful figure who supposedly went straight after an earlier stint in prison and took part in city politics in terms of showing up at some fundraisers or community events. But none of his allegations against the mayor or other figures went anywhere.

        I don't think you can blame this on bias at the FBI; you'd need to explain why they were happy to indict Yee (who arguably had a higher political profile and was seen as a future governor) but somehow gave Ed Lee a pass.

        • Mizza 2297 days ago
          I don't see how you can say that "none of his allegations against [..] other figures went anywhere" given that his allegations to a state senator going to jail.

          Is it so hard to believe that a politician is corrupt?

      • Apocryphon 2297 days ago
        It's also offensive because the proper term should be tong or Triad, not "Chinese Mafia." If they're gonna conspiracize, get the nomenclature right.
  • CalChris 2297 days ago
    London Breed is a native San Franciscan. However, she's also a Willie Brown protégé. Willie Brown was/is the Donald Trump of San Francisco. Of course, when Ed Lee was elected many said it was Brown's third term.
    • dragonwriter 2297 days ago
      > Willie Brown was/is the Donald Trump of San Francisco.

      Wait, what? How is that analogy supposed to work?

      Willie Brown : San Francisco :: Donald Trump : ???

      Donald Trump is a born-wealthy real estate developer that eventually entered electoral politics, first holding office at an age when people are more likely to retire from electoral politics than begin a career.

      Willie Lewis Brown, Jr., was born in segregated Texas, first worked as a shoe-shine boy, became a lawyer, and shortly went into politics, serving 30+ years in the Assembly, about half of it as Speaker. (And a while as kingmaker when the Republicans held a slim majority.)

      Trump is perceived as an anti-establishment political figure, Brown was the California political establishment, even when other people held higher offices in the State (and even in the interruption in his time as Speaker.)

      Other than both being men, I can't see much that they have in common that would justify the analogy you suggest. They are more opposites than analogs.

      • tptacek 2297 days ago
        I lived in San Francisco during the Willie Brown era, and the rap on him was that he was the closest thing to a Chicago-style politician you'd find anywhere outside of Chicago. I got caught up in a towing scam run by people connected to his administration; I'm inclined to believe that reputation was earned.
        • dragonwriter 2297 days ago
          Sure, there's at least a sound basis for accusing Brown of being a big city machine politician (in style, at least, SF isn't really a big city, despite what it thinks of itself.)

          But even that hardly supports an analogy to Trump: there are lots of things you can say about Trump, but machine politician isn't one of them.

          • tptacek 2297 days ago
            I think it's a comparison in terms of a ratio to public gregariousness and profile over personal ethics.
      • anigbrowl 2297 days ago
        SF city politics are petty, to put it very mildly. Brown is regarded as an operator in that he did a lot of development deals and tended to broker deals in 'smoke filled rooms' rather than being a creature of procedure. Otherwise I agree that comparing him to Trump is absurd.
        • CalChris 2297 days ago
          The direct comparison is that anyone but Brown or Trump would never overcome their scandals. But SF voters just said, Oh that's just Willie being Willie and national Republicans just said Oh that's just Trump being Trump.
          • dragonwriter 2297 days ago
            > The direct comparison is that anyone but Brown or Trump would never overcome their scandals.

            Brown is unique in many ways, but bouncing back from scandals in SF politics isn't one of them.

      • CalChris 2297 days ago
        > Trump is perceived as an anti-establishment political figure

        He may embarrass establishment types and he may use populism in his appeal but Cheeto is very establishment.

        Brown is a power broker. I'm not sure what his legacy is beyond that. He said before he got elected mayor that he would pave San Francisco and he's pretty much done that. He also referred to himself as a pimp and the board of supervisors as his whores. A colorful figure (as is Trump) but basically a broker for development deals.

        I know San Francisco well and I even took dance classes from his 'wife' Blanch Brown at Dance Mission. But again, I don't know what his legacy will be. I couldn't say what he's done, outside of deals, and I lived in San Francisco 25+ years. He sure pissed me off when he called in favors to literally line the street with cops, sheriffs and CHP during Critical Mass a month or so before his re-election. Previously, SFPD bike patrol rode CM themselves.

        Nope, I don't like the guy. And I'd never call him any sort of liberal.

    • butterfi 2297 days ago
      WOAH there... Brown might be a lot of things, but he's no Donald Trump. Friends and foe alike describe Brown as "the smartest guy in the room." Brown is an intellectual powerhouse compared to Trump and way more politically savvy then Trumps ever been.
      • CalChris 2297 days ago
        Smart solves problems. Least principled gets deals done. Brown got a shit ton of deals done. Still, you would think that after a certain level of success that he wouldn't care about the next deal. But that appears to be all there is to the man.

        Witty, I'll give you. But you'll have to give me an example of him being smart.

        • butterfi 2297 days ago
          granted, my information is second-hand, but one of the smartest people I know (very accomplished) had worked with Brown personally over several years and remarked that Brown was the "smartest person in the room" and frequently could get to the core issues of a given problem quickly.
          • CalChris 2297 days ago
            I'm sure he could. I'm not calling Brown an idiot. But he's no genius either. Bluntly, we're mostly talking about real estate deals where he had the ability to block and unblock progress at will. If he unblocked progress (UCSF Mission Bay) I'm sure he looked like a genius.

            But what does he have to show for it all? The replacement of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge was $6.5 billion, at least a decade late, up from $250M original, and then he wanted it named after himself. Really. I'm supposed to call that smart? It used Chinese steel (Rose Pak thanks you) that was delayed every time there was a price fluctuation.

            Really. The guy was a power broker. But he wasn't an effective politician. He just cut deals.