Greg

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 13:46:36 -0800

I saw a rough cut of this film a while back and enjoyed it so I'm looking forward to seeing the final version....I don't think Mr. Arth ever presented himself as a curer of all social ills - fixing buildings is not a panacea for Every Single Problem Out There. However, what I got from his story was that here was a guy who took on ALL the risk of converting a horrible part of town into something liveable. The fact is that the people living there were mostly drug users and dealers and criminals. Are they going to suddenly "change" just because the area has changed? No. We can all take whacks at this guy for his quirks and the like, but in the end , the fact is he did SOMETHING while everyone else, including the former landowners and the city did NOTHING. And he did it without connected nonprofits or government money, and without a lot of what SF considers necessary to fix an area. Now, perhaps there are ways that local government might have helped him fix the area AND keep it affordable for folks who want decent housing but don't have ton of money. They did not. That to me says a lot about Deland, and about San Francisco - people love to talk but no one just DOES. http://www.njudahchronicles.com/2007/09/a_really_great_documentary_you.html

SFist: DocFest: New Urban Cowboy

Greg