Meet the editor

John ‘Elbos’ Elberling has lived and worked inside the San Francisco “redevelopment” universe for 50 years, since beginning as a young Inner Sunset Action Committee activist hoping to “Make The MUNI Work” (actually it’s a lot better now than the decrepit 1950’s leftovers it was). As TODCO’s Director 45 of those years, he built 900 units of affordable housing in 8 SOMA projects, always engaged within the Redevelopment Agency’s Yerba Buena/South of Market empire, with all its City Hall machinations, deal-making, sucessful projects (like Yerba Buena Gardens and Mission Bay), mistakes, and flops. Along the way he spearheaded the South of Market Redevelopment project, The Treasure Island Base Reuse Project (as Commission Chair for 8 years), and today’s Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy. Joining the Anti-Downtown-Manhattanization fight with 1980’s Proposition O ballot initiative (we were right!), he wrote the winning 1986 Proposition M “Annual Limit On Office Development,” and its final installment, the winning 2019 Proposition E Office/Housing Supply Linkage ballot initiative.  No stranger to deal-making with developers himself, in recent years he secured 5 key sites  in SOMA/Mission for the City to build future affordable housing, including the pivotal Monster In The Mission property. Born and raised in Oakland, John first arrived in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury for 1967’s Spring Of Love … “What a long strange trip its been.”