Lev Kushner: The City Talks To You

Lev Kushner says you can hear the city talking to you if you give it an ear.

San Francisco can feel like an uncaring city, especially lately. But it speaks to you, if you listen.

For light sleeping, vaguely neurotic fathers like myself, the rattle of the pre-sunrise garbage trucks is a soothing reminder that the system works even while I don’t. “I got you,” the city says. “I’ll take those 6,000 cardboard boxes you accumulated this week.”

If you live by a bus stop, as I used to on Nob Hill, you become desensitized to the mutterings of the passing buses, repeated at all hours. “1 - California to Drumm and Clay.” “Don’t give up,” the city says, as it endlessly strives to finally make it to Drumm and Clay and just stay there.

Until 2019, the Outdoor Public Warning System would give a little hello every Tuesday at noon as part of its weekly test. “I’m looking out for you in case everything goes to hell,” the city reminded me. Unfortunately, that system is in year four of a two-year refurbishment. The city only looks out for me intermittently, I guess.

And just last week, I discovered that the crosswalk button at Steiner and Geary has gone off script. Using that same familiar computerized voice that we all hear but completely ignore, it doesn’t say, “wait,” or, “walk sign is on,” but, mysteriously, “change password.” My children and I pressed that button over and over, as if we were trying to decipher the predictions of an oracle, but in the end, we walked off as confused as ever.

What was the city trying to tell us? Was it a viral ad for a password manager? A teaser for a sequel to Steve Martin’s LA Story?

I’ll never know, but I definitely changed all my passwords.

With a Perspective, this is Lev Kushner.

Lev Kushner is a real estate and place-making consultant who lives in San Francisco.