The Presidio is a relic of San Francisco's colonial past, but Jim
Meadows wants to make it a prototype for the cyberfuture.
Meadows is executive director of The Presidio Trust, the
quasi-public group charged with converting the former Army base into
a facility for a variety of civilian uses.
Exactly who gets what already has become a controversy. But the
arguments so far have overlooked a hidden asset -- one that Meadows
thinks can fuel the Presidio's economic engine.
``We have a high-speed fiber optic loop already in place,'' he
said.
In the Internet age, having fiber in the ground is like a building
site being wired for electricity or plumbed for water and sewage.
Meadows plans to make this fiber loop the nerve center of a web of
multimedia, video and Internet-based enterprises. One industry he
hopes to kick-start is the creation of distance-learning broadcast
centers for colleges.
He also intends to plug all 1,600 housing units on the Presidio
into this fiber net, so folks at home will be able to hold video-
conferences with their offices or with other Presidio families.
In short, Meadows wants to turn the Presidio into San Francisco's
most wired neighborhood.
This isn't just some bureaucratic dream. Before he came to the
Presidio, Meadows managed the conversion of Denver's Lowry Air Force
Base. There, he created a fiber town with 4,000 wired homes and many
multimedia enterprises.
``We feel it's an investment in the future,'' said Denver City
Councilwoman Polly Flobeck.
Meadows expects to encounter envy and opposition from those not
lucky enough to land in this high-tech Garden of Eden.
But he promised, ``There will be a broad range of opportunities
for people across the economic spectrum to live and work here.
``Someday, all of San Francisco will be like this,'' he added.
``The fact that we can become a test bed for that 21st century city
is a plus and not a minus.''
-- Wired voters? ``All things in moderation'' might be the motto of
the largest single voting block in California, a group identified as
``wired workers.''
That's the gist of a new survey conducted by the Institute for the
New California, a public policy group in Walnut Creek. The INC
reached this conclusion after polling a scientific sample of adults.
The Institute defined wired workers as wage earners who worked
outside the home, used network-connected PCs on the job, and were
relatively free to organize their own workdays.
Pollster Mike Hais said the survey respondents who fit this
definition identified themselves as independents, Republicans and
Democrats, in that order.
They were heavily pro-choice on social issues, and moderate on
fiscal affairs. Their favorite politico was Al Gore.
Coincidence or not: The Institute was co-founded by Morley
Winograd, a former Bell executive who now serves as senior policy
adviser to Gore.
-- Bookmark it! CMP, the Long Island-
based trade-press publisher, soon will unveil a new Web site that
makes it easier to find electronics industry information.
CMP has taken the contents of dozens of its pubs -- among them EE
Times and Windows magazine -- and made it accessible from a single
page. It combines a search engine with a Yahoo-like set of categories
that point to sub-topics like semiconductors, PCs, finance, etc.
Other Web sites, notably Cnet and ZDNet, put tons of great
tech-type info online. But I think CMP has a better way to let people
quickly zero in on just what they want.
The site won't be open to the public until Monday, but Chronicle
readers can get a peek today at www.cmpnet.com/search.
-- Questionable taste? If it's such a boom time in Silicon Valley,
why did a recent survey of car dealers find that the lowball Ford
Taurus was the top-selling car in Santa Clara County last year, while
the Mercedes-Benz E-class was 15th on the list?
Got a tip, gripe or brainstorm? Tom Abate wants to hear it by phone (650-961-2689), fax (650-961-5023) or e-mail (abatesfgate.co
