Robert Leland Speer

The Saga of San Francisco's Wild Western Addition and Me Robert Leland Speer

Recommended by the preeminent Californian Historian Kevin Starr, this book explores in depth the most interesting and controversial area of San Francisco--the Western Addition. Although now much reduced into a smaller district from the original nineteenth-century boundaries which previously included the districts of the Marina, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, Cow Hollow, Anza Vista, Hayes Valley, Lower Pacific Heights, Alamo Square, and the North Panhandle; the district continues in the twentieth-first century to be a fascinating element of changing urban development, as also examined on other cities in the U. S.; such as Kansas City, Oakland, etc. As a personal autobiography, the book adds extensive information from public memberships, social intercourse, neighborhood meetings, real estate business transactions, commission-appointed memberships, and political involvements. The San Francisco Redevelopment and Housing Agencies are revealed in vivid detail. This western development of the city was a vortex of immigrants from the Eastern U. S., Western Europe, Asia, Africa, etc. Many of these were members of a great variety of religious backgrounds such as Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, etc. This "melting pot" is analyzed in great detail. Also the importance of the political reforms by the LGBT community is explored. The utopia of San Francisco has rapidly changed with the biotech and high-tech immigrants, who work in Silicon Valley but prefer to live in the Western Addition. This book promises an amazing and wild journey for the reader.