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A People's Guide

A popular geography project that aims to build spatial understandings of power.

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SF Bay Area

A People’s Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area looks beyond the mythologized image of San Francisco to the places where collective struggle has built the region.

Countering romanticized commercial narratives about the Bay Area, this project highlights the cultural and economic landscape of indigenous resistance to colonial rule, radical interracial and cross-class organizing against housing discrimination and police violence, young people demanding economically and ecologically sustainable futures, and the often-unrecognized labor of farmworkers and everyday people.

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The book asks who had—and who has—the power to shape the geography of one of the most watched regions in the world. As Silicon Valley’s wealth dramatically transforms the look and feel of every corner of the region, like bankers’ wealth did in the past, what do we need to remember about the people and places that have made the Bay Area, with its rich political legacies?

With over 100 sites that you can visit and learn from, this book demonstrates critical ways of reading the landscape itself for clues to these histories. A useful companion for travelers, educators, or longtime residents, this guide links multicultural streets and lush hills to suburban cul-de-sacs and wetlands, stretching from the North Bay to the South Bay, from the East Bay to San Francisco.

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Contributors

Rachel Brahinsky

San Francisco Bay Area

Associate professor of politics and urban studies at the University of San Francisco

Alex Tarr

San Francisco Bay Area

Alex Tarr is assistant professor of Geography at Worcester State University.

Selected Sites

Visual Portfolio, Posts & Image Gallery for WordPress

Emeryville Shellmound Memorial

Sausalito BART Stop

Greystone Cellars

Alcatraz Island

Westbrook Court and Hunter’s Point Hill Street Names

Room 641A

Lexington Club

Alex Nieto Park

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Resources

Visual Portfolio, Posts & Image Gallery for WordPress

Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour

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Blog

People’s Guide Website Begins Beta Testing

March 19, 2021

On Friday the People’s Guide Website will begin limited beta testing leading up to launch…

A People’s Guide Goes Live

March 19, 2021

After many years, the first version of A People’s Guide is visible to the public!…

A People's Guide to Los Angeles

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