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The big construction fire in Mission Bay brought to mind how hard the downtown real estate interests and the town's "progressives" fought to keep that once-empty rail yard from becoming a vital part of the city.

Mission Bay was one of the longest-running development fights ever. The downtown office-building owners like Walter Shorenstein didn't want competition from new buildings South of Market, and the progressives up on Potrero Hill didn't want high-rises spoiling their views.

For years the project languished in the political and planning morass of ballot fights, environmental objections and traffic studies, all over whether it was just too big and would change the face of the city.

Sound familiar?

The break in the logjam came when we got UCSF, which was looking to build a new campus in either Alameda or Brisbane, to join the project. We gave them 43 acres. Then we got then-Gov. Gray Davis to agree that one of the science buildings UC was planning to build around the state would go in as well.

Then we pumped up the fact that the biggest shareholder in Catellus, the project's developer, was the state workers retirement fund. Suddenly, what had been attacked as a sweetheart development deal became a do-good public project.

You didn't need a budget analyst's report to confirm that after 10 years, San Francisco's $165 million-a-year homeless program hasn't changed things much.

One walk around Union Square at night, or along Mission Street between First and Main, will show you the problem is as bad as ever.

Some of those folks have been sleeping in the same spot for so long, they're registered to vote there.

But as bad as they look, the downtown sleepers are some of the most peaceful and polite people you will find in the city.

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Mission Bay fire brings long development fight to mind

ABC Will Hodgman's Liberals have won 14 seats in the 25-seat Tasmanian parliament.

Tasmanian Liberal leader Will Hodgman has won the state election, ending 16 years in Opposition.

With 80 per cent of the vote counted, the Liberal Party has won more than half the vote and is set to take majority government with 14 seats in the 25-seat Parliament.

It is the Liberals' best ever electoral result.

Mr Hodgman has also broken the hex of being the country's longest-serving Opposition Leader and will be the state's next Premier.

The Tasmanian Liberal Party stormed into power, posting its best electoral result in 60 years.

It is shaping as a comfortable victory for the leader who campaigned on returning the state to a majority government after four years of a Labor-Green minority.

There has been a swing against the Labor Party in all five seats, making it the worst election result for the party in six decades.

The Liberals look set to pick up an extra seat in every electorate except Denison.

ABC analyst Antony Green says Labor has won six seats and the Greens two, with three seats still undecided.

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Tasmania votes: Liberals sweep to power, ending 16 years of Labor rule

Tasmania's Liberals is set for a crushing election victory and a return to office in the island state for the first time in 16 years.

Will Hodgman has led the party to victory at his second attempt and will become the first Liberal premier of the state since Tony Rundle.

Polls had predicted a bloodbath for Labor, who shared power with the Greens for the past four years, and experts were calling the result with barely 10 per cent of the vote counted.

Labor was hard hit in the north and the Greens had also lost electoral support.

Under Tasmania's unique Hare-Clark electoral system, where five members are elected in each seat, the Liberals needed to pick up three for a majority in the 25-seat lower house.

They looked set to win 14, while Labor had won five, the Greens two with four still in doubt.

But in the popular vote it was a landslide, the Liberals claiming at least 53 per cent, a swing of 14, and Mr Hodgman the highest personal tally of any candidate.

The 44-year-old father of three young children comes from a long line of Hodgmans involved in Tasmanian politics, but will be the family's first premier.

His late father Michael was a popular Fraser government minister and state politician.

His grandfather Bill Hodgman and uncle Peter were also members of the state parliament.

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Tas Liberals set to win majority govt

Tasmania's Liberals is set for a crushing election victory and a return to office in the island state for the first time in 16 years.

Will Hodgman has led the party to victory at his second attempt and will become the first Liberal premier of the state since Tony Rundle.

Polls had predicted a bloodbath for Labor, who shared power with the Greens for the past four years, and experts were calling the result with barely 10 per cent of the vote counted.

Labor was hard hit in the north and the Greens had also lost electoral support.

Under Tasmania's unique Hare-Clark electoral system, where five members are elected in each seat, the Liberals needed to pick up three for a majority in the 25-seat lower house.

They looked set to win 14, while Labor had won five, the Greens two with four still in doubt.

But in the popular vote it was a landslide, the Liberals claiming at least 53 per cent, a swing of 14, and Mr Hodgman the highest personal tally of any candidate.

The 44-year-old father of three young children comes from a long line of Hodgmans involved in Tasmanian politics, but will be the family's first premier.

His late father Michael was a popular Fraser government minister and state politician.

His grandfather Bill Hodgman and uncle Peter were also members of the state parliament.

More here:

Tasmania's Liberals win majority govt

ABC Incoming Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman addresses supporters as his wife, Nicola, shares a laugh.

Labor has been swept from power in Tasmania but is clinging to life in South Australia after both states went to the polls on Saturday.

Voters called time on 16 years of Labor rule in Tasmania, flocking to the Liberals, whose leader, Will Hodgman, had positioned his party as the only option for a stable majority government.

The Liberals will get that, with at least 14 seats in the 25-seat legislature, which is decided using the complex Hare-Clark proportional representation system.

Premier-elect Mr Hodgman said Tasmanians had voted for change "and that's what they will get".

In South Australia, what had been expected to be a comfortable Liberal victory failed to materialise, with Jay Weatherill's Labor putting up a fight in the Adelaide marginals which have delivered it power for the past three terms.

The South Australian Electoral Commissioner says with the high volume of early and postal votes, up to a quarter of the overall vote is yet to be counted.

The ABC's election computer is predicting 23 seats for Labor, 21 for the Liberals and two for independents.

Both major parties say the seat of Mitchell is too close to call.

Mr Weatherill said he was "hopeful of retaining government".

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Liberals swept to power in Tasmania, Labor hopeful of clinging to power in South Australia