REVITALIZE OUR NEIGHBORHOOD ECONOMY

Our unique neighborhoods make San Francisco the great city that it is. We must insure that our neighborhoods thrive. Every San Franciscan deserves the strong feeling of community that is achieved when people can work close to home and have their children go to schools in their neighborhood. We are a world class city. Our citizens deserve a world class quality of life.

REVERSING THE COMMUTE

We must bridge the gulf between housing and jobs. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, nearly 100,000 San Franciscans leave the City everyday for better jobs down the peninsula and across the bay. It's time to reverse the commute. We must focus on bringing quality, high wage jobs back to San Francisco, so that workers who ride buses everyday to Silicon Valley can instead walk or take public transportation to jobs in the City. When people who live in San Francisco are able to work in San Francisco, it improves the quality of life for everyone.

HELPING SMALL AND LARGE BUSINESSES THRIVE

We see the evidence all around us: vacant storefronts in the neighborhoods and more than 13 million square feet of empty office space, enough to fill 13 Bank of America towers. It's time to fundamentally rewrite the City's economic equation with a long-term strategy focused on job creation. We can't address San Francisco's budget deficit over the long term by relying solely on cost-cutting while sitting back–as we have in the past–and letting the fantastic bay views do our marketing. We need to reinvigorate our economy by reinventing economic development. Despite deep cuts in basic city services, San Francisco's budget deficit is expected to soar over the next two years.

BUILDING ON SF's LEADERSHIP IN THE GREEN ECONOMY

Mayor Newsom made great strides to make San Francisco a global leader in the green technology economy. Protecting San Francisco's unique competitive advantage in the green sector also means defending California's landmark law against carbon pollution.

PUTTING NEIGHBORHOODS FIRST

We have to do a better job responding to the needs of our neighborhood businesses. Joanna supports the Civil Sidewalks Initiative, which would protect merchants and pedestrians by placing reasonable limits on sitting and sleeping on city sidewalks. Increased incidents involving street youth are harming local businesses, discouraging people from shopping and eroding the quality of life for residents in the neighborhoods.