Category Archives: Danville CA

Robert Stark interviews The Flower Heart about Asian American Culture & Demographics

Robert Stark and Francis Nally (aka Pilleater) talk to The Flower Heart about Asian American culture, and immigration and demographic trends, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Flower Heart, whose moniker is a Chinese expression for being a player, is a second generation Chinese American who grew up in Oakland’s Chinatown. You can read his articles on Substack.

Topics include:

-The history of Chinese immigration to the US
-The divide between older Cantonese and more recent Mandarin speaking Chinese immigrants, the former which The Flower Heart is from
-How Indian h1bs are replacing Chinese people in Silicon Valley and the degree of tension between those two groups
-Contrasting The Flower Heart’s experiences at diverse  Alameda HS and majority White and affluent Miramonte HS in Orinda
-How many Asian youth from the East Bay emulate Black culture
-How The Flower Heart’s mom joked that she sent him to a majority White HS because it was less hypercompetitive than an Asian school
-How White/Asian mixed marriages are more common in White areas like Orinda than in Asian ethnoburbs
-How a mixed Asian/Latino ethnogenesis is forming in certain East Bay cities like San Leandro
-When The Flower Heart’s dad recently sold his house in the majority White suburb of Danville, Indian families purchased every new home
-How the future is ethnogenesis forming along class lines rather than either balkanization or a melting pot
The gender dynamics between White and Asian couples
-Francis’s demographic observations from New York and Philadelphia
-How most assimilated Chinese Americans are moving to the suburbs
-Is K-pop responsible for rising Asian male desirability?
-Reasons that Asians voted Republican in the past but are now more Democrat
-How Asians are having a political moderating impact on the Bay Area
Pulling Up The Ladder?-The Child of Immigrants Makes the Case for Moderate Immigration Restriction 
The Flower Heart’s debate with Walt Bismarck over high vs low skilled immigration
-The reasons for conformity and favoring lucrative career paths over self-actualization in Chinese culture
-Why The CCP will invade Taiwan to maintain its legitimacy

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Checkout Robert Stark’s Facebook pageTwitterInstagramStark Truth TV, novel Vaporfornia, and subscribe to his Substack.

Central Contra Costa Photo Album (Summer 2021)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Central Contra Costa County Album includes the Caldecott Tunnel, Lafayette, Briones Reservoir, Briones Regional Park, view to Mount Diablo, Danville, and California State Route 24 through Lafayette and Orinda, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Checkout Robert Stark’s Facebook pageTwitterInstagramStark Truth TV, novel Journey to Vapor Island, and subscribe to his Substack Newsletter.

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The Starkian Bay Area

Robert Stark and Matt Pegas discuss their trip to the San Francisco Bay Area over the last Labor Day weekend, their past trips in 2018 (extended segment: 20 minutes in), and how the Bay Area relates to Alt-Urbanism and cultural, aesthetic, societal, and Alt-Center political themes from the show.

Topics:

Observations of the impact of the pandemic including an increase in homelessness
Why the Bay Area is the center of the Gray Tribe political sphere
The degree to which there is a unique and authentic regional culture and aesthetic
The John CPortman designed Embarcadero Center, concept of Interior Urbanism, and how Portman was unique in that he was both an artistic visionary and a capitalist
The impact of wealth on aesthetics
The magic of travel and appreciating the tourist traps
San Francisco Neon
The Bay Area’s Geography, microclimates, and urban layout
Wilderness locations including Mount Diablo, Tilden Regional Park, Alpine and Bon Tempe Lakes in Marin, and the region’s extensive Greenbelts
Unique attributes of the Bay Area suburbs of Marin County, Lamorinda, Walnut Creek, Alamo, and Danville, Ski-Lodge Urbanism, and Retrofitting The Aesthetically Pleasing Suburb
Bay Area demographics trends
Does California need a rightest version of Multiculturalism?

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Checkout Robert Stark’s Facebook pageInstagramStark Truth TV, and novel Journey to Vapor Island.

Blackhawk & Danville Photo Album

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo album includes San Francisco suburbs, Blackhawk and Danville in Contra Costa County, California.

Checkout Robert Stark’s Facebook pageTwitterInstagramStark Truth TV, novel Journey to Vapor Island, and in production documentary The Gospel of Gibson.

Continue reading Blackhawk & Danville Photo Album

Robert Stark talks to Adam Mayer about San Francisco Architecture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and Matthew Pegas talk to architect Adam Mayer about San Francisco’s architectural history and current trends. Check out his TwitterInstagram, and Architectural Portfolio.

Topics:

Robert’s meetup and architectural tour with Adam in Downtown SF
Ghirardelli Square and the Cannery
SF Neon TOURS
Beaux-Arts Palace Hotel
Art Deco highrises Sir Francis Drake Hotel, Shell Building, and Pac Bell Tower
Mid Century Modern Joseph Eichler highrises, the Fairmont Hotel, and the Hilton
William Pereira’s Transamerica Pyramid and Louis Kahn’s use of concrete inspired by ancient monuments
Underappreciated 80’s post modernism, Art Deco revival, Marriott Juke Box, and Crocker Galleria
Philip Johnson’s 101 California Street and Union Square Neiman Marcus
The John Portman designed Embarcadero Center, it’s attributes of a self contained city and urban oasis, and the JW Marriott
Portman’s uniqueness in being both an architect and real estate developer
Jonathan Segal’s project ‘Architect as Developer’
SOMA highrise boom, Central SoMa Rezone, 5M development, and, Caltrain redevelopment 
New Transbay Transit Center
SOMA skyscrapers 181 FremontSalesforce Tower, and Rem Koolhaas’ Tower
The end of the high-rise boom cycle
The Missing Middle Housing
Addressing the housing crisis while respecting historic preservation and aesthetics
Current trends in architecture and marriage between modernism and post modernism(meta modernism)

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This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s PaintingsStark Truth TV, and his novel Journey to Vapor Island




Alt Urbanism: Retrofitting The Aesthetically Pleasing Suburb

By Robert Stark: Originally Published on Alt of Center

There has been a growing movement within the New Urbanist scene to retrofit car-oriented suburbs. There is even an excellent book on the subject titled Retrofitting Suburbia by Ellen Dunham-Jones. The book focuses primarily on retrofitting aesthetically unappealing, car-oriented suburbs that were built in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.

Despite opposition from suburban NIMBYs this idea makes practical and aesthetic sense. Your typical American suburban commercial thoroughfare is lined with ugly strip malls with massive parking lots that are aesthetically unappealing, ecologically unsustainable, and unfriendly to pedestrians. The safety of pedestrians is rarely secured. It really should come as no surprise that law firms like lamber goodnow are often required to assist pedestrians who have been struck by cars in these areas.
Continue reading Alt Urbanism: Retrofitting The Aesthetically Pleasing Suburb