10 ms·

What I can't understand is that after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, where "Over 80% of the city was destroyed by the earthquake and fire" ( https://en.wiki

What I can't understand is that after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, where "Over 80% of the city was destroyed by the earthquake and fire" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_San_Francisco_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_San_Francisco_earthquake ), why on earth was it rebuilt? Surely that's a sign to move the new city elsewhere?

onion2k 10y ago
You're only looking at the downside risk. There are huge upsides to the area - notably the San Francisco Bay is a natural harbor, which makes it a really good place to put a port. The promise of wealth from trade meant people would live them pretty much regardless of the downsides.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  Fine, but what's likely to be cheaper, building an artificial harbour away from the fault line or rebuilding a damaged city every 100 years or so?
  - creshal 10y ago
    The fault line is exactly on the coast and 800 miles long. Rebuilding affected cities every 100 years or so is cheaper than re-routing all ship traffic affecting a quarter of the US.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - onion2k 10y ago
    You'd have to go a long way from the San Francisco Bay to be a safe distance away from the fault line, which would have a dramatic impact on the costs of operating the port - it'd add hundreds of miles to the distance you'd need to move the goods off the ships to where they were needed. Factoring that additional cost in over the decades between earthquakes (SF burned down quite regularly prior to 1906), I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually cheaper to rebuild the city occasionally.
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      > "You'd have to go a long way from the San Francisco Bay to be a safe distance away from the fault line" Is there an equation that's useful in working out how the strength of an earthquake changes as you move further away from a fault line? I tried to find one, but haven't had any luck yet.
  - tajen 10y ago
    > What's cheaper, rebuilding a damaged city every 100 years or so? I wonder whether this is actually expensive, compared to the job gravitational opportunity. Surely landlords of the skyscrapers downtown have included the risk in their financial plans. Home owners will support the greatest cost, but once again, they would have much less if they didn't live in SF. Health costs may already be included in your insurances. The federal government may help a bit. The rest of the people may go bankrupt, but there are many homeless people who were former researchers already, so it's renewing the workforce (the wrong way). It's extremely cynical, but city planners aren't the most compelled to act. I personally wouldn't go live in Vancouver for that reason, I don't go to conferences in USA because of the TSA, and I'll never do tourism in Japan because their conviction rate is 98%. One needs to include the risks in their life calculations.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      And the plane you take could crash. Or someone could run into your car. Or you could choke on that piece of chicken. I dunno. I'm unlikely to take a tourist trip to certain countries these days or to do certain sports activities that for me the risks exceed the rewards. But I'm also not going through life worrying about what might happen in, say, Japan of all places. But maybe we're saying the same thing and my risk calculus is just way different. I have done things like fairly high altitude climbing for example.
      - mark-r 10y ago
        I'm not afraid of visiting the SF bay area, because I know my risk for a few days there is really really low. But I refuse to live there, because the total risk over the remainder of my life is higher than I'm comfortable with.
  - eridius 10y ago
    You don't have to rebuild the city every 100 years. From what I recall, most of the damage to the city in the 1906 earthquake was due to the fires which couldn't be controlled, which was because the earthquake damaged the water lines too badly and they didn't have any working backups. But not only do we have better infrastructure now, we also have multiple auxiliary water systems put in place specifically for emergencies. If a big earthquake hit tomorrow there certainly would be a lot of damage, but there would not be widespread fire and the city would not be completely destroyed. Fun fact: One of those auxiliary systems is 177 cisterns containing between 75,000 and 200,000 gallons of water buried all over the city. If you've ever noticed red brick circles embedded in streets, those mark the cisterns. They're maintained specifically for dealing with fires.
babuskov 10y ago
> why on earth was it rebuilt? They probably thought: Great, now we have 100 years until the next one. ;)
- ghaff 10y ago
  Do what makes economic sense today. Then it will be someone else's problem. Thankfully, we never make decisions like that with respect to software :-)
ghaff 10y ago
And Tokyo in 1923. But really the entire Rim of Fire. We build things in areas that are relatively dangerous geologically because there are other advantages to those areas. San Francisco has one of the best harbors on the West Coast and access to a lot of inland resources. But just another reason not to concentrate a good chunk of the US software industry in the Bay area I guess.
rurban 10y ago
Fun fact: why did they decide to build a huge nuclear power station close to the fault, and 6m above sea level so that a tsunami will have Fukushima like effects? That's what will bring Silicon Valley down, not direct quake causes.

onion2k 10y ago

You're only looking at the downside risk. There are huge upsides to the area - notably the San Francisco Bay is a natural harbor, which makes it a really good place to put a port. The promise of wealth from trade meant people would live them pretty much regardless of the downsides.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
Fine, but what's likely to be cheaper, building an artificial harbour away from the fault line or rebuilding a damaged city every 100 years or so?
- creshal 10y ago
  The fault line is exactly on the coast and 800 miles long. Rebuilding affected cities every 100 years or so is cheaper than re-routing all ship traffic affecting a quarter of the US.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- onion2k 10y ago
  You'd have to go a long way from the San Francisco Bay to be a safe distance away from the fault line, which would have a dramatic impact on the costs of operating the port - it'd add hundreds of miles to the distance you'd need to move the goods off the ships to where they were needed. Factoring that additional cost in over the decades between earthquakes (SF burned down quite regularly prior to 1906), I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually cheaper to rebuild the city occasionally.
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    > "You'd have to go a long way from the San Francisco Bay to be a safe distance away from the fault line" Is there an equation that's useful in working out how the strength of an earthquake changes as you move further away from a fault line? I tried to find one, but haven't had any luck yet.
- tajen 10y ago
  > What's cheaper, rebuilding a damaged city every 100 years or so? I wonder whether this is actually expensive, compared to the job gravitational opportunity. Surely landlords of the skyscrapers downtown have included the risk in their financial plans. Home owners will support the greatest cost, but once again, they would have much less if they didn't live in SF. Health costs may already be included in your insurances. The federal government may help a bit. The rest of the people may go bankrupt, but there are many homeless people who were former researchers already, so it's renewing the workforce (the wrong way). It's extremely cynical, but city planners aren't the most compelled to act. I personally wouldn't go live in Vancouver for that reason, I don't go to conferences in USA because of the TSA, and I'll never do tourism in Japan because their conviction rate is 98%. One needs to include the risks in their life calculations.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    And the plane you take could crash. Or someone could run into your car. Or you could choke on that piece of chicken. I dunno. I'm unlikely to take a tourist trip to certain countries these days or to do certain sports activities that for me the risks exceed the rewards. But I'm also not going through life worrying about what might happen in, say, Japan of all places. But maybe we're saying the same thing and my risk calculus is just way different. I have done things like fairly high altitude climbing for example.
    - mark-r 10y ago
      I'm not afraid of visiting the SF bay area, because I know my risk for a few days there is really really low. But I refuse to live there, because the total risk over the remainder of my life is higher than I'm comfortable with.
- eridius 10y ago
  You don't have to rebuild the city every 100 years. From what I recall, most of the damage to the city in the 1906 earthquake was due to the fires which couldn't be controlled, which was because the earthquake damaged the water lines too badly and they didn't have any working backups. But not only do we have better infrastructure now, we also have multiple auxiliary water systems put in place specifically for emergencies. If a big earthquake hit tomorrow there certainly would be a lot of damage, but there would not be widespread fire and the city would not be completely destroyed. Fun fact: One of those auxiliary systems is 177 cisterns containing between 75,000 and 200,000 gallons of water buried all over the city. If you've ever noticed red brick circles embedded in streets, those mark the cisterns. They're maintained specifically for dealing with fires.

babuskov 10y ago

> why on earth was it rebuilt? They probably thought: Great, now we have 100 years until the next one. ;)

ghaff 10y ago
Do what makes economic sense today. Then it will be someone else's problem. Thankfully, we never make decisions like that with respect to software :-)

ghaff 10y ago

And Tokyo in 1923. But really the entire Rim of Fire. We build things in areas that are relatively dangerous geologically because there are other advantages to those areas. San Francisco has one of the best harbors on the West Coast and access to a lot of inland resources. But just another reason not to concentrate a good chunk of the US software industry in the Bay area I guess.

rurban 10y ago

Fun fact: why did they decide to build a huge nuclear power station close to the fault, and 6m above sea level so that a tsunami will have Fukushima like effects? That's what will bring Silicon Valley down, not direct quake causes.