Plan for iconic California park pits housing against history

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
Associated Press

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — California’s eclectic city of Berkeley is renowned for its tie-dyed hippies and high-brow intellectuals, and now it’s experiencing a 1960s flashback triggered by People’s Park. The landmark has served as an emblem for counterculture, a political stepping stone for Ronald Reagan and a refuge for the homeless. The 3-acre site’s colorful history has been thrust back into the spotlight by the University of California’s renewed effort to pave over People’s Park to build housing for about 1,000 students. Protests and a court ruling have stopped the project for now, but it hasn’t muted the debate over a site that has been described as “a trace of anarchist heaven on Earth.”