An aerial view of Detroit's Core City neighborhood where Caterpillar, Canopy and True North are located.

Most San Francisco electeds are generally pro-housing these days. But even some of our most ostensibly YIMBY leaders have recently drawn a line in the sand.

They banned three industrial zones in the South of Market, Mission Bay and Bayview neighborhoods from being eligible for streamlined housing under the new state law, Senate Bill 79, and from the city’s “Family Zoning” plan. Supervisor Myrna Melgar, a proponent of the exemptions, said keeping industrial zones intact is important to preserve “blue-collar industrial jobs,” which are “sort of the backbone of working-class communities.” 

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But manufacturing accounts for only 5.3% of the region’s working population. And the sector has seen a steady decline; those numbers aren’t likely to rebound.

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Don’t these communities also need places to live and economic revitalization?

I’m just back from Detroit — a city that’s been grappling for decades with the changing nature of its industrial employment base. I’m not going to be one of those writers who drop into a city for a few days and attempt to make sense of it. But I do want to highlight an incredibly impressive experiment in neighborhood-building that I visited there — one that San Francisco should consider as it weighs the future of its own industrial centers.

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Core City, about 2 miles northwest of downtown Detroit, a largely abandoned, post-industrial neighborhood (sound familiar?) that has........

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