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Listen Local: State of the City and Smash’n’Grabs

by Laura Wenus, Daniel Hirsch and Lydia Chávez January 24, 2015September 29, 2020

The Mission Local crew getting ready for their first live BFF broadcast at the Secret Alley.

Listen Local is Mission Local in audio form. We go live on a biweekly webcast every other Thursday morning from 9:30 to 10:00. Here’s our latest show:

In this episode, we talk about the mayor’s state of the city address last week. Housing is, of course, one of both Ed Lee’s and our top priorities. We chat about funds for affordable housing, the Ellis Act, and what some of Lee’s promises in his speech might actually translate to in our day-to-day realities.

Afterward, we discuss the local phenomenon of smash-and-grabs — having a car window smashed and anything remotely valuable taken is practically a rite of passage for any city car owner, and in the Mission, there’s almost a competition over which block is the worst. We talk about ways to protect yourself from this popular form of theft and a few tricks for what you can do if your electronics are indeed stolen (see this excellent CNET guide).

You can listen on BFF.fm or right here:

Daniel Hirsch

daniel.hirsch@missionlocal.com

Daniel Hirsch is a freelance writer who has been living in the Mission since 2009. When he's not contributing to Mission Local, he's writing plays, working as an extra for HBO, and/or walking to the top of Bernal Hill.

More by Daniel Hirsch

Lydia Chávez

lydia.chavez@missionlocal.com

Founder/Executive Editor. I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019 when I retired. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still there.

As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.

Right now I'm trying to figure out how you make that long-held interest in local news sustainable. The answer continues to elude me.

More by Lydia Chávez

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