John King, the Chron‘s “urban design writer,” reports back from an Oakland Bay Conservation and Development Commission conference, where urban design thinkers, um, thought a lot about what might happen if global warming raises the sea level in the bay. Say goodbye to the San Francisco and Oakland airports, and waterfront condos might be a thing of the past. Said thinkers talked up the prospect of buying out property owners near the shore and restoring the bay’s wetlands as a flood control measure. Interestingly, the BCDC was formed in the ’60s out of fears that development might erode the bay. Now, they’re worried that the bay will rise and cast our towers of iniquity to the ground. Nice.
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