Streetscape

Photographer Ron Font takes a look at the empty storefronts that have sprouted up all along Nob Hill, one of San Francisco's finest addresses. Font, a resident of Nob Hill, said he has seen a marked increase in vacant spaces in his neighborhood.

KALW Public Radio reporter Alison Hawkes took a closer look at Parkmerced, where owners are pitching a 30-year plan to transform the site into a low-carbon community. For developers, it’s a test to see if “green” can stand for both environmental sustainability and the color of money. Hawkes found the drive for a clean new future is clashing with the past.

In a shift that suggests a new zero-tolerance stance on blight, San Francisco officials said Friday they would raise the annual fee to “register” more than 200 abandoned buildings to $6,885 each, the maximum allowable under a recent city ordinance. “We’re going for the full amount,” said William Strawn, a spokesman for the Department of Building Inspection. “We have to make people aware that this is a new law and we’re going to enforce it.”

We call it the plywood parade — the relentless march up Market Street from Fifth to Eighth of boarded-up or erratically open storefronts, emptying offices in the upper stories and crumbling facades. Some 31 percent of the storefronts on this stretch of Market Street are vacant. Both local government and businesses are trying to restore this faded area of Market Street into a vibrant commercial center. The three mid-Market blocks mostly look like hell.