Thread by @LarsSkjerping

Third Rails // Context Shifts

Third rail issues are ideas that are untouchable or “charged” to an extent they not be approached, lest political doom. In Berkeley, the term can be applied to a few cases. Take People’s Park...

Developing on the University of California-owned land known as People’s Park is a contentious issue that has taken on a refreshed sense of urgency.

Founded in response to the university’s attempt to develop the lot in the late 1960s, the park has remained a hallowed symbol of the counterculture movement and successful resistance to the university administration.

More recently, in the context of the regional housing crisis, many people — both students and community members — feel that the provision of new housing has become a more pressing issue than anti-capitalist fervor and resistance.

The current housing affordability crisis, felt most acutely in Bay Area cities, has been exacerbated by Bay Area politics. Even before the renewed calls for providing student housing on the park site...
(news.berkeley.edu/2018/05/03/new…
dailycal.org/2018/05/06/cha…)

...the contentious nature of the issue is evidenced by the evolving tone when describing potential development:

2006: “[T]he park has become the third rail of city politics; none of our elected officials have the guts to confront it”
(berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2006-10-…)

2011: “Telegraph Avenue [i.e. People’s Park] is the third rail of Berkeley politics…it’s almost going to have to be my generation that dies off before we can do anything”
(berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2011-01-…)

2015: “[T]he park is the “third rail” for chancellors of UC Berkeley”
(blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/09/29/peo…)

2017: “People’s Park has been a political third rail for city officials, until now”
(mercurynews.com/2017/08/23/bor…)

2018: “The park was like the third rail … chancellors felt they just couldn’t touch it. But I think the time is just right. It’s a combination of people’s sense of urgency of the housing crisis and also, frankly, the urgency of the homelessness crisis”
(latimes.com/local/educatio…)

2018: “In a sign of the changing politics surrounding the once-untouchable park, Berkeley’s progressive Mayor Jesse Arreguin is backing the effort enthusiastically ..."
(sfchronicle.com/politics/artic…)

"... ‘For many decades this was the third rail of politics in Berkeley, but today I think there is a desire to look at something different’”
(sfchronicle.com/politics/artic…)

Over time, the sentiment around development has grown from fatalistic and resistant to inevitable. This is a prime example of shifting attitudes in Berkeley politics.

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