Category Archives: San Francisco

Robert Stark interviews Robert Brenner about his Gritty Old Time Square Tours

Robert Stark and co-host Pilleater interview Robert Brenner. Robert is a writer, critic, satirist, futurist, urbanist, and porkatarian. His work has appeared in the Huffington Post, New York Magazine, Salon, the Barnes & Noble Review, Medium, Different Truths, Antiserious, and Theory In Action. He is a graduate of the Writers’ Institute at CUNY.

Topics:

Robert Brenner’s Gritty Old Times Square tours, which are offered on Saturday’s once a Month, hosted by Untapped Cities
Adult Entertainment is the focus of the tours, but they also cover the general history of Time Square
The remnants of seedy Time Square, including The Playpen, and the Show World Center on Eighth Avenue
Robert Brenner’s experience in Time Square as a youth in the 70’s
That era of Time Square portrayed in the Films Taxi Driver and Midnight Cowboy
The gentrification of Time Square in the 90’s, and how the area went from an interesting but dangerous area to a safe and boring one
The Deuce on 42nd Street, which was the center of adult entertainment in the 70’s
The Porn Industry in Time Square, and premier of 70’s porn films such as Behind the Green Door and Deep Throat that paved the way for the future of the pornographic industry, spawning many different adult sites, live cam sites, and even the Babestation blog.
Robert Brenner’s point that every city needs a Red Light District
Peter Sotos’s Pure Filth about the pornographer Jamie Gillis
San Francisco’s Tenderloin, where Robert Brenner lived in the early 80’s, and Robert Stark’s observations from his trip to the San Francisco Bay Area
The decline of neon signage in favor of LED, Robert Stark’s interview with Thomas Rinaldi of New York Neon, and the company LET THERE BE NEON! which restores old signs
The history of the Broadway Theater District, the New Amsterdam Theatre, and the defunct Paramount Theatre
The closing of Carnegie Deli and Maxie’s Delicatessen
The Bond Clothing Store Signs in Times Square
The John Portman designed Marriott Marquis in Time Square
The Tour of the Remnants of Penn Station, and plans for Moynihan Station inspired by the old Penn Station
New York Skyscrapers


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Robert Stark interviews Prince of Queens about Economics & the Alt Left Movement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Pilleater, Bay Area Guy, and Rabbit talk to alt-left YouTuber Prince of Queens about Alt-left philosophy and economic issues.

Topics:
Prince of Queens’ discovery of the Alt-left
The “Milo of the Alt Left?”
Prince of Queens’ vote for Jill Stein, and why he viewed Clinton as much worse than Trump
Rabbit appears 6 minutes in
A foundation for the Alt-left
Is the Alt-left, “the left-wing faction of the Alt-Right?”
Rationalism and the skeptic community
Bay Area Guy’s point that the Alt-Right has neglected economic issues, which are crucial to millenials
Books on economics including Michael Hudson’s Killing the Host, Ha-Joon Chang’s 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About CapitalismDean Baker’s Rigged, and Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus
Why corporations must have incentives to invest in their communities
Prices for housing and causes of the housing crisis
Prince of Queen’s personal story about renting in the Bay Area
The FIRE Economy, and the importance of distinguishing between productive earned income and parasitic unearned income
Corporate control and private-sector oppression
Mundane working, productivity, and income
The Basic Income
Student loan debt
The need for debt forgiveness
Slavery to work, Job distribution, and Ponzi schemes
Economic trolling


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Robert Stark interviews Charles Marohn from Strong Towns

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Pilleater talk to Charles Marohn. Charles is a Professional Engineer (PE) licensed in the State of Minnesota and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). Chuck is the Founder and President of Strong Towns. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Technology and a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute.

Topics:

How Charles’s background in urban planning exposed him to the problems of sprawl development
Charles’s books Thoughts on Building Strong Towns, Volume 1 & Volume II
The fiscal unsustainability of sprawl development
Charles’ point that the key factor in urbanism is Incremental Development
Charles’s point that cities must be viewed as ecosystems
The “build it they will come” fallacy, and how traditionally massive infrastructure projects were designed to serve existing population centers(ex.Roman Aqueducts)
How pre-automobile cities tend to be the most viable
Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile theory, and how it relates to urbanism
The Density Question, Charles point that density should neither be fetishized nor seen as inherently bad, but must take into account incremental development
How cities such as New York and San Francisco have value independent of their economies, while places like the Silicon Valley would become unviable if their industries collapsed
Zoning laws and land use regulations
The movement to Retrofit Suburbia, how it’s a step in the right direction, but has it’s limitations
How cities will contract in the future, with people living in both cities and towns, but that it’s the space in between that’s unviable
Micro Apartments
Political divides, and how when it comes to planning issues on a local level, people tend to be more pragmatic than dogmatic
The Public vs. Private sector role in infrastructure, and how Charles’s point that things that are high risk should be in the private sector, and low risk in the public sector(ex. Wall Street baillouts)
The role of the government in historic preservation and protecting the environment
Housing and affordable family formation


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Robert Stark interviews Anatoly Karlin about his American Decade, Futurism, & Political Trends

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Robert Stark and co-host Pilleater talk to Anatoly Karlin. He blogs at The Unz Review

Topics include:

Anatoly’s article at the Unz Review about his American Decade
Why Anatoly is leaving the United States and going back to Russia
How the United States is becoming more like Europe
T.R. Reid’s book The United States of Europe, where he argued that the EU was emerging as a superpower rivaling the US, but has latter been disproved
How during the Bush era Americans perceived Europeans as “Cheese Eating Surrender Moneys,” but latter Sarkozy became the architect of the war in Libya, and arming Syrian rebels
Another element of America’s Europeanization is the decline in social conservatism, the surge in support for gay marriage, and drug legalization
Anatoly’s political views, which are fairly socially liberal(except for rejecting political correctness, and radical feminism),  economically centrist, and closest to Rabbit’s AltLeft
U.S. Millennials More Likely to Support Censoring Offensive Speech, especially among university students who are the future elites
The decline in American fertility rates toward European levels
How American politics now resembles Europe in the sense that there are five distinct blocs: Clinton democrats, Sanders socialists, Rubio/Bush etablishment conservatives, Cruz Bible-bashers, and Trump nationalists.
Anatoly’s pre election prediction article US Elections 2016: Let’s MAGA, Not War, and Trump’s support in the rust belt
Trump’s economic policies as a hybrid of supply side economics, and economic nationalism, and the similarities to Putin’s economic policies in Russia
The GINI index of income inequality
The pros and cons of economic automation, and the basic income
Transhumanism, Zoltan Istvan, and his book The Transhumanist Wager
The Bay Area where Anatoly spent most of his time in the US, and how it’s pretty much ideal, but also the most expensive macro-region of the US
California is also home to Ron Unz, Steve Sailer, as well as the “Alt Left” movement(the tiny group of thinkers combining leftist economics with HBD, sane views on gender relations, and a penchant for futurism )
The futurist scene in the Bay Area including Scott Jackisch’s Bay Area Futurists meetup, Health Extensions Salons, Mike Johnson’s Qualia Research Institute, Effective Altruism, and the “techno” faction of NRx
Mass Transit, Bay Area Rapid Transit, how older cities tend to have more integrated transit systems, and why conservatives oppose mass transit
Global Warming, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius who discovered climate change, debunking climate change deniers, and whether it will benefit arctic regions such as Russia
Observations on other American cities including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Washington DC, and Pittsburgh
Anatoly’s experience ridding across the nation on Amtrak
Architecture: Skyscrapers, Brutalism, architect John Portman’s 70’s Neofuturism, and Rabbit’s ideal city based on the film Logan’s run
America’s great wilderness and National Park System


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Robert Stark interviews Alt-Left Youtuber Prince of Queens about SJW’s & the Regressive Left

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Robert Stark, co-host Pilleater, and Bay Area Guy talk to alt-left YouTuber Prince of Queens.

Topics includes:

Quiplash and Google hangouts
Joshua David McKenney was a college roommate of Prince of Queens in college
Professor Jordan Peterson and “Authoritative” psychological traits
The Queer community and fourth-way intersectional feminism.
The Regressive Left
SJW’s hate cisgenger white male homosexuals
“Homosexual men trying to rape women”
How the left fell after the 2nd Obama term
Intersectional feminism as a form of trickery
Black Lives Matter
The arrogance of Feminism about the Hillary campaign
Bernie Sanders and Bay Area Guy’s endorsement
The “progressive stack” and how SJW’s destroyed Occupy Wall Street
The cult of Race Theory
San Francisco & Stuff White People Like
Asians and SJWs
Whites and Asians on the same side for “privilege?”

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Robert Stark interviews Bay Area Guy about the SF Bay Area and the FIRE Economy

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Robert Stark, Rabbit & Alex von Goldstein talk to Bay Area-based blogger Bay Area Guy of  Occident Invicta

Topics include:

Bay Area Guy’s article The Bay Area and the FIRE Economy, which reviews Robert Stark’s interview with Laura Foote Clark of Grow SF
How as a renter in the Bay Area this issue personally effects Bay Area Guy
The role that Banks and the FIRE sector play in driving up the cost of real estate
Bay Area Guy’s point that he does not want the Bay Area to become like SoCal: an environmental eyesore characterized by track housing and strip malls
However Bay Area Guy does endorse Laura’s proposal of having Silicon Valley become more urbanized
The role that mass immigration plays in the housing crisis on top of the FIRE economy
Bay Area Renters Federation’s Sonja Trauss: Advocating for Housing Development in San Francisco
San Francisco Bay Area Renters’ Federation‘s lawsuit against the city of Lafayette over a development
The argument that white NIMBY’s oppose development because of diversity, and Bay Area Guy’s article, “Diversity” is Simply Code for “Non-white”
Bay Area Guy’s review of Killing the Host by Michael Hudson
The FIRE economy, which is an economy based on Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate sectors
Michael Hudson’s proposal to tax unearned income(ex. Tobin tax)
The goal of a fair tax policy should not just be to redistribute wealth, but also to punish predatory behavior, and incentivize productive behavior
How Michael Hudson invokes the arguments of Classical Liberals such as Adam Smith, and John Stewart Mills, who distinguished between earned and unearned income
Unearned income is any wealth not generated by production or labor
Debt and living paycheck to paycheck is the road to serfdom
How the majority of people’s income goes towards unearned income(ex. rent, insurance, mortgages)
How lower wages are bad for the economy, because consumers have less money to spend
Wikileaks: Hillary Clinton Calls Bernie Sanders Supporters Basement Dwellers, and that she viewed Wall Street as best to manage the economy
The Calvinist mentality in American culture, that your worth is based on your wealth
What makes Hudson’s book so brilliant is he points out that the ultra rich make their money through unproductive or predatory ways
Examples of countries that have moved away from the FIRE economy include Germany and Japan, who have a high end manufacturing base
In contrast the FIRE economies of the United States and the United Kingdom became dominant using protectionist and mercantilist measures, but liberalized their economies later on
Why Universal Healthcare and Public investment in infrastructure benefit the economy
Michael Hudson debunks supply side economics by pointing out the rich spend most of their extra income on products they already own, or lend their money out at interest
How the concept of a free market has been twisted from freedom from the rentier economy, into letting the financial sector do what ever they want
Michael Hudson’s point that the primary function of banking is not to fund business or stimulate the economy, but to bid up assets already in place, and attach debt to rents


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Robert Stark talks about his trip to the San Francisco Bay Area

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Robert Stark, joined with Rabbit, and Alex von Goldstein talk about his recent trip to the SF Bay Area

Topics include:

Robert’s departing point Santa Barbara, which is a nice laid back coastal town, but under the cultural influence of LA
Robert Stark’s podcast with Bay Area Guy about his last trip to SF
Robert met up with Bay Area Guy and Anatoly Karlin in Berkeley
How like Robert, Alex, and Rabbit, Bay Area Guy and Anatoly Karlin exist on the periphery of the Alt-Right(ex.The Radical CenterAlt Left)
The Cultural Leftist legacy of Berkeley, and how Anatoly Karlin spoke at Richard Spencer’s event at UC Berkeley
How places that are politically correct often produce interesting dissident thinkers
How Berkeley is on a scale similar to European cities(ex. small, compact, dense and walkable)
How transplants often adopt the stereotypes of cities
Demographic trends in the Bay Area, how the traditional white middle class is being pushed out, but also working class Blacks and Hispanics are being priced out through gentrification
Asian culture and immigration in the Bay Area, and Asian Majority Cities, including Daly City, where Robert stayed
The seedy Tenderloin District, urban grittiness, and how it reminded Robert of the film Taxi Driver
The film Dirty Harry
The BART(Bay Area Rapid Transit) System, which has a 70’s futurist aesthetic, and has had issue with crime
The film Fruitvale Station about a Police incident on BART in Oakland
The 70’s futurist Embarcadero Center, designed by architect John Portman, and the importance of having urban oasis’s
How the Silicon Valley is a bland suburban region, which demonstrates that technology has limitation without culture and aesthetics
The Shortage Of Women In Silicon Valley
How the area where the tech elite lives has wilderness preserves, in contrast with their support for mass immigration
How the Bay Area has done a better job at Wilderness Conservation than Southern California
Robert’s observation’s about where to build in the Bay Area in response to his interview with Laura Foote Clark of Grow SF
How San Francisco has it’s own unique Aesthetic, and is the most scenic American City
How San Francisco is on a high level aesthetically, but the dominant culture is consumerism mixed in with some cultural leftist views
Robert stayed in Walnut Creek, which is a mid-century car oriented suburb in the process of being retrofited into a walkablle New Urbanist community
Walnut Creek aslo has BART access, and owns more open space per capita than any other community in California
80’s Vaporwave Architecture in Walnut Creek, how historic preservation has neglected 80’s Kitsch, and the occultist origins of Kek in California 80’s culture
Nearby Lafayette, which is an idyllic semi rural town, with quick BART access to the city(the best of both worlds for those who can afford it)
The San Francisco Bay Area Renters’ Federation lawsuit against Lafayette, and the debate regarding development and diversity
Whether the Bay Area should be it’s own separate country, state, or broken up into a bunch of small independent city states

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Robert Stark interviews Scott Jackisch

Oakland Futurist

 

 

 

 

Scott Jackisch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Rabbit interview Scott Jackisch. Scott is an IT consultant located in Oakland, CA. He blogs at The Oakland Futurist and runs the East Bay Futurists meetup.

Topics include:

Scott’s interest in futurism and science fiction writers including Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and William Gibson
Scott’s futurist meetup and how there is a strong interest in futurism in the San Francisco Bay Area
How in the modern era people are isolated, and how meetups can fill in that void, and create new communities
How the meetup itself is not political, but rather an open discussion on futurism
The different political factions within futurism including liberals, libertarians, and Neoreactionaries
Scott’s critique of Neoreaction, how his main disagreement is over their rejections of progress, but can sympathize with their reaction to extreme political correctness
Rabbit’s point that he got interested in Neoreaction because the idea of people being able to form their own societies appealed to him, but was turned off by the extreme traditional views
Scott’s political views, and how he is basically a Centrist and Pragmatist
Why Scott accepts Realpolitik, which is a system of politics or principles based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations
Transhumanism
Scott’s series The Robot Lord Scenario, which he plans on turning into a novel
Trends in warfare,  how the invention of the gun leveled the playing field, but that automative weapons will enforce inequality
Daniel Suarez’s novel Kill Decision
Economic automation and it’s implications
Economics, whether capitalism is necessary for innovation, and how a functional economic needs both capitalism and socialism
The Bay Area’s housing crisis, NIMBYism, and where to build new housing
Vertical Living and urban agriculture
Retro Futurism, dystopian and utopian visions of the future
How science fiction writers can provide narratives for engineers to build their visions(ex. Elon Musk and the Culture series)
The role of sociopaths in society, and how power generally gets concentrated by sociopaths
From a realpolitiks perspective how do you take power away from people in power that are causing harm?
Scott’s message for people to listen to each other instead of demonizing the other side


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Robert Stark interviews Laura Foote Clark of Grow SF

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Robert Stark joined with Rabbit and Krishan Madan interview Laura Foote Clark. Laura is the president of GrowSF, which advocates for affordable and market rate housing in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Topics include:

The Bay Area’s lack of affordable housing
How the housing crisis particularly effects millennials
How integrated public transit provides better access to affordable housing
The severity of the housing crisis, and how a massive increase in housing is needed just to sustain current demands
The miss conception that there is no space to grow in San Francisco, and the twitter series wasteOfUrbanSpace
Mega Developments in the Bay Area, and Laura’s point that focusing on specific projects can distract from the overall housing shortage
Where to build new housing
SF grants density bonuses to affordable housing developments
Micro Apartments
What Silicon Valley Would Look Like if Tech Companies Built Themselves Cities
Laura’s point that if the Silicon Valley became a more urban environment it would ease the demand for housing in San Francisco
The role that suburbs play in the Bay Area’s housing shortage
How the lack of new housing in cities encourages suburban sprawl
The trend in preference for urban over suburban living among millennials
How Environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club are divided on the housing issue
Bay Area’s Greenbelt Alliance and New Urbanism
California Proposition 13
Proposition C: San Francisco Affordable Housing
Rent Control
Why Laura would like to see a unified zoning plan for the Bay Area
Whether there is a limit on how many people the Bay Area can accommodate
How the housing issue is the main political divide in the Bay Area
Krishan’s point that tax cuts effect the rich, welfare the poor, but housing can be the political issue of the middle class
The importance of getting involved in local politics


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Robert Stark interviews Adam Hengels about Market Urbanism

Adam Hengels

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Rabbit talk to Adam Hengels.

Adam is SVP and Director of Development of PAD, a real estate development start-up that builds communities for young professionals.  PAD’s developments will feature micro-apartments and other product innovations.

From Mega-Projects to Micro-Apartments, Adam has brought his development expertise to several high profile projects such as the $5B Barclays Center Arena and Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, New York .  Adam earned his Masters in Real Estate Development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has a BS and MS in Structural Engineering.

Adam is passionate about urbanism, and is known as a pioneer in the Market Urbanism movement.  His mission is to improve the urban experience, and overcoming obstacles that prevent aspiring city dwellers from living where they want.  He considers the conventional apartment layout to be stale.  Product innovations such as micro-apartments are a key part of the next wave in urbanism.

Topics include:

Why Adam advocates for the liberalization of zoning laws
The debate between absolute private property rights vs. the argument that regulations are necessary to prevent landowners from harming their communities
Zoning laws that contribute to suburban sprawl(ex. parking requirements, limits on density in suburbs, and government subsidies of roads and highways)
Retrofitting Suburbia
How demographic and economic changes are leading to the decline of suburbia
How to attract middle class families back to cities by improving education and increasing housing supply
New Urbanism
How zoning laws can prevent bad developments, but can also lead to increases in costs of living
Whether zoning laws are necessary to preserve the aesthetic and historic character of cities
How original mixed use communities declined due to zoning regulation and the rise of the automobile
Robert Stark’s point that even though he supports historic preservation and wilderness conservation, he acknowledges that many zoning laws have negative affects on cities and encourage sprawl
How the Lack of New Housing On The Westside of LA Is Causing Gentrification Of East And South LA
Height limit restrictions in cities
Minimum lot size requirements, and how they stifle creativity in urbanism
Whether highrises can provide housing for the middle class, and Adam’s point that new highrises are expensive but over time they decline in cost and eases the overall demand for housing
Whether mass transit can function in a free market, and how New York City’s Subway System started out as private, and Tokyo’s Subway System is semi private
Transit-oriented development
Adam’s development of micro apartments and how they can address the housing crisis for young people
How zoning laws make it difficult to create micro apartments
The role that Zoning and Urban planning plays in income inequality

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Transcript of interview:

Continue reading Robert Stark interviews Adam Hengels about Market Urbanism