WHAT'S COOKING IN THE BAY AREA

In the slight chance that I move our family to the Bay Area some day, I have decided to read the paper each morning to see what local stories I gravitate to, that if I were to have to find employment here I'd want to be somehow involved in. So far, I've been following Governor Schwarzenegger's proposed budget cuts, Santa Clara's negotiations with the San Francisco 49ers over a publicly subsidized football stadium, and the flak San Jose councilperson Madison Nguyen has taken from her fellow Vietnamese over calling a proposed neighborhood "Saigon Business District" rather than "Little Saigon."

In Philly, we're looking at neighborhoods and transit and waterfronts and taxes and affordable housing and commercial corridors, to name a few issues. Other cities might have some similar issues and some different ones, depending on political culture and geography and age. So I guess everywhere you go, there's interesting stuff to get your hands dirty in. One fun part about a week in the Bay Area has been reading about what's cooking here.