The Bay Area, while very far from being a well planned live/work/commute environment, does have a somewhat unique structure. It is made up of 3 geographically

The Bay Area, while very far from being a well planned live/work/commute environment, does have a somewhat unique structure. It is made up of 3 geographically dispersed, relatively equitable major cities, albeit with different strengths (SF - international cachet, SJ - largest city plus proximity to Silicon Valley, Oakland - future opportunity). There are arguably more high end jobs in the suburbs surrounding these 3 major cities than in the city centers themselves. While this has removed the issue of one major city sucking in all of the surrounding resources, it has also distributed all of the problems of a major city center throughout an entire region - extremely high housing costs, horrendous traffic, etc. Since each municipality in the Bay Area enjoys near ubiquitous power over local development and policy, it is also very difficult to implement effective regional plans to improve these issues.