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Drive on Highway 280 and marvel at the “protected space”. From San Jose to SF, 50 miles and only a handful of houses. Do we really need all that green space in

• cgriswald 8y ago
  There are huge chunks of that land that isn't protected (.e.g., all the land surrounding CA-92 corridor, except the region next to the reservoir), and yet there are no houses there. It is all hills, and many of those hills are particularly hard, making them less-than-ideal for building housing. I suspect even if you opened up all the protected space, you'd only end up with a lot of sprawl, but not much of an impact on housing availability. It would be far easier and cheaper to build up in existing areas (with the added benefit of preserving all that land). That said, the complete lack of development still surprises me a little, with the region around 280/Sand Hill being the most confusing. It's unprotected, seems outside any municipality, is largely flat, and is close to basically everything.