Over the 20 years Pastor Kenneth Sampson has led the New Home Missionary Baptist Church in Bayview, he’s seen a steady decline in the community’s African-American population.  According to Sampson, upwards of a quarter of black residents cashed out their Bayview homes and relocated to the East Bay during the last decade’s housing boom.  Now that the market has busted, those same suburbs are dotted with foreclosures.

During an economic downturn that’s prompting many of us to test out our grandmothers’ secret recipes – who knew tongue could be so tasty – rather than dine out, it isn’t surprising that the Best Buy near the Potrero Hill Shopping Center has strategically placed “No Interest for 18 Months!” signs all along their shiny row of KitchenAide and Frigidaire refrigerators.  If there’s extra money to go around, replacing an old fridge may be one of the few shopping indulgences that can be fun and pragmatic.

In sexually indulgent San Francisco, many sex workers consider themselves lucky to be free of the harassment, repression, and persecution their profession is subject to elsewhere. But even in the City the sex business is under pressure.  Last fall, Proposition K, a municipal ballot measure to decriminalize sex work, lost to a well-funded anti-trafficking campaign led by Mayor Gavin Newsom and District Attorney (DA) Kamala Harris. Then came the financial crisis, resulting in job-loss and steady cuts to health and welfare services.  Sex workers and their advocates agree:  sex work is not a recession-proof business.

To many San Franciscans, the old, rusting tower structure on rickety Pier 84 near the Islais Creek Landing is just another crane among many dotting San Francisco’s southern waterfront.  But to a group of union pensioners, port officials, architects, and Islais Creek enthusiasts, the relic is a testament to the years of hard labor that helped create the remarkable City around it.  The Copra Crane – so called because it was a vital part of the process of moving dried coconut, or copra, from ship to production facility, and back to ship again – is a monument as important as the Golden Gate Bridge, they say. And like the marvel of engineering that is the bridge, the Copra Crane should also evoke awe; that of the longshoremen, shipbuilders, construction tradesmen, and other laborers and their work, which laid the foundation for modern San Francisco.