As I described a few days ago, residents and business owners in San Francisco have come up with their own plan for dealing with tent camps which crowd the sidewalks and sometimes even block access to doorways. Over the past few years, they have installed heavy steel planters on the sidewalks. The planters weigh up to 2,000 pounds each once they are fully loaded with rocks and dirt and they take up space that would otherwise be prime territory for homeless people looking to pitch a tent and settle down.
As recently as last year there were city officials encouraging residents to do this, knowing that the city itself was not going to come to their rescue. But this week there was a change of course. A group of about 30 homeless activists has filed complaints with the city about the planters which they call “hostile architecture.” So residents and business owners started getting…
